Bush promises guilty GIs will be brought to justice / Images of abuse at U.S. hands stir world furor

Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Published
4:00 am PDT, Saturday, May 1, 2004

The attached 8 photos are still grabs from the 60 MInutesII video of the Iraqi prisoners tortured in Iraq. KPIX Design Dept.

The attached 8 photos are still grabs from the 60 MInutesII video of the Iraqi prisoners tortured in Iraq. KPIX Design Dept.

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The attached 8 photos are still grabs from the 60 MInutesII video of the Iraqi prisoners tortured in Iraq. KPIX Design Dept.

The attached 8 photos are still grabs from the 60 MInutesII video of the Iraqi prisoners tortured in Iraq. KPIX Design Dept.

Bush promises guilty GIs will be brought to justice / Images of abuse at U.S. hands stir world furor

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2004-05-01 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- Arab countries reacted with rage and revulsion Friday after images of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners were broadcast around the world.

Bush administration and U.S. military officials scrambled to contain the furor and to assuage concerns among allies. The photos showed U.S. troops celebrating as prisoners were sexually humiliated and otherwise abused.

"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated," President Bush said. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. And so I didn't like it one bit."

Bush said that the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad would be investigated and that the perpetrators would be "taken care of."

Analysts said the strong response by Bush appeared directed less at Americans than at an international audience skeptical about U.S. intentions in Iraq. The United States and Britain are struggling to meet a June 30 deadline for a transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, and the images threatened to undermine already tenuous international cooperation.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply disturbed" by the photos, and the British government called the matter appalling. Arab countries were more strident, with the Arab League calling the mistreatment "savage acts" and Arab broadcast networks describing the incidents in similar terms.

"This is the logic and modus operandi of imperialist conquest and colonial occupation," the Tehran Times wrote. "The pictures of torture, brutality and sexual sadism are representative of the entire criminal operation being conducted in Iraq."

The photos, first broadcast Wednesday on "60 Minutes II" on CBS, showed hooded prisoners piled in a human pyramid and simulating sex acts, as U.S. soldiers celebrated.

One photo showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands; the prisoner was told, falsely, that he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box.

Another image showed a female soldier, apparently an American, pointing and grinning at the genitalia of a naked Iraqi.

"It provides a graphic portrayal of many of the worst impressions that much of the world has about America," said Andrew Kohut, who, as director of the Pew Research Center, has polled extensively in Arab and European countries. "It's red meat to large numbers of people all around the world who are increasingly anti-American and don't think we represent the things Americans pride themselves on."

Foreign policy experts said the photos could cause lasting damage to U.S. efforts.

Arab commentators said the images were particularly damaging because of Muslim restrictions on nudity.

The photos also invited parallels to Saddam Hussein's regime because the abuse occurred in Abu Ghraib, a prison used by Hussein for torture. Under his rule, Iraqis spoke of the place in hushed voices. Many were afraid to even utter its name.

Without detailing the abuses, the U.S. military brought criminal charges in March against six soldiers over incidents, allegedly the ones in the photos, that occurred at the prison in November and December 2003.

The charges included indecent acts with another person, maltreatment, battery, dereliction of duty and aggravated assault. The military has also recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers involved in running the prison.

The senior officer at the prison at the time, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, has left the post as part of a scheduled rotation. The military is said to be considering action against her.

The commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, is being sent to Iraq to take over the occupation detention facilities. And the CIA said Friday that its inspector general had two longstanding probes into abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including one investigation into a prisoner's death.

A leading human rights group said the military should investigate whether the soldiers' superiors had ordered or tolerated the abuse.

"The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves ... suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman, said he had tried to limit the damage before the CBS show aired on Wednesday.

"I talked with the Arab press two nights ago, before the '60 Minutes' show was broadcast, because I wanted the Arab press to understand and possibly communicate to their fellow Iraqis a couple of key points," he said.

Kimmitt said that the U.S. military was "absolutely appalled" by the photos and that the perpetrators were facing criminal charges. He also said authorities believed the incident involved fewer than 20 of about 8,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

"Please don't for a moment think that that's the entire U.S. Army or the U.S. military, because it's not," Kimmitt said in remarks directed at Iraqis. "And if you think those soldiers that are walking up and down the street approve of what they saw, condone what they saw or excuse what they saw, I can tell you that I've got 150,000 other American soldiers who feel as appalled and disappointed as I do at the actions of those few."

Few in the Middle East suggested that the alleged abuse by Americans could compare with Hussein's decades-long brutal reign in Iraq. But one Arab official who said he was personally elated at Hussein's fall, said he was disturbed that some of the techniques exposed by CBS, including the reported threat of electrocution, "are similar to what was used by Saddam's regime."

Many saw the mistreatment as only the latest example of American disregard for Arabs.

"They were ugly images. Is this the way the Americans treat prisoners?" asked Ahmad Taher, 24, a student at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University. "Americans claim that they respect freedom and democracy -- but only in their country."